


The Scrunchie Fic

by predilection



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: Peter gets Lara Jean's scrunchie back from Gen.





	The Scrunchie Fic

**Author's Note:**

> It bothered me that Gen still had the scrunchie at the end of the movie so I wrote this story to remedy that. 
> 
> (Warnings for Gen being emotionally abusive.)

The day after Lara Jean tells him that she loves him, Peter stands at Gen's front door. He gave his word that things between him and Gen were over and they are, but there's still one more thing he has to do.

Gen smiles when she opens her door to find him there, but there's nothing pleasant about her expression. "Come crawling back already?"

He feels a familiar tug -- an urge to apologize to her and appease her -- but he remembers that he's here for Lara Jean's sake and squashes it down. "I came to get Lara Jean's scrunchie." 

Gen's reply is immediate. "You gave it to me so I'm keeping it."

"Come on, Gen," he groans. "You stole it. Now give it back."

"You let me take it." She makes a show of looking him over. "If you want it back, then you'll--"

But Peter is done being her pawn. He really is. "No. Not anymore. Just give it to me, please."

Gen stares at him, eyes narrowing. "Now why would I do that?" she asks, and then slams her door in his face.

*

Peter isn't about to let this go though. When he pulled the scrunchie from Lara Jean's hair at the house party, she told him how much it meant to her and he promised to keep it safe. So the next day, he finds Gen in the hallway between classes, takes a deep breath, and says, "Give it back."

Gen blinks up at him with falsely bright eyes and asks, "Give what back?" She proceeds to pull down the cuff of her shirt sleeve to reveal the item in question around her wrist. She laughs softly as she snaps the scrunchie against her skin.

She knows he won't grab her or take it from her by force and he knows the scene she's prepared to cause if he was the kind of person who would try such a thing. He sighs. "Just give it to me, Gen."

She pretends to takes a second to think about it. "No," she says, turning on her heel and walking away.

*

He removed Gen from instagram so she tags him in a picture to get his attention. In the photo, she's smirking and giving the peace sign and her hair is held up in a high ponytail by Lara Jean's scrunchie.

"The hair tie is a gift from @p_kavinsky," she writes in the caption. "Isn't it cute?"

He's already typing out a reply demanding it back when he realizes he's falling hook, line, and sinker into whatever game she's playing and closes the app.

*

Later that night, when Lara Jean's leaning against his side as they watch _The Golden Girls_ , Lara Jean says, "Spill."

"What?"

She pulls away just enough to look at him. "Something's bothering you. Did Gen do something again?"

"What? No," he says, the lie coming automatically and he curses internally. "Maybe," he admits.

Lara Jean groans. "What did she do this time?" Then she raises her hands in fists in front of her like a boxer and nudges him in the arm with her elbow. "You need me to take care of her?" Her eyes are sparkling with mirth and he feels himself smile. He loves that she cares, and he's amazed, not for the first time, how effortlessly she stands up to Gen.

"No, seriously," Lara Jean says. "What's up?"

He thinks that if he was more like Lara Jean, Gen wouldn't still be such a thorn in his side, and it's then that he decides he needs to confront Gen -- really make a stand against her -- in a way he hasn't before. His plan is already forming when he tells Lara Jean, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

His plan isn't perfect, and it's not exactly something Lara Jean would do herself, but he knows Gen in a way she doesn't. He waits until after he gets home to open instagram again. This time, he ignores his notifications and goes directly to Lara Jean's account, scrolling through her photos and searching for one specific post in particular he's pretty sure he's going to need.

*

He tries not to overthink it and instead intercepts Gen at her locker the next day. "I'm not playing. Give it back."

"Give what back?" Gen asks, acting innocent even though she's wearing the same high ponytail as the photo from the day before. 

"You stole your hair tie from my girlfriend," he says, pitching his voice loud enough for passersby in the hall to hear.

"What's wrong with you?" Gen asks. "First you tell me never to talk to you again, and then you show up at my house. A girl could get mixed signals." Gen is getting louder now too, deliberately playing to the gathering crowd, and Peter can tell what she's doing. He wonders how he ever put up with her manipulations.

He fights to keep his tone calm when he says, "I'm just asking you to give back the scrunchie you stole."

"I didn't steal it," Gen says. "What's your problem?"

His problem is Gen. That she keeps deliberately trying to hurt him and Lara Jean. That he spent so much time letting her. And when he thinks about it like that, it's easier to tell her, "You flaunted that you have it in Lara Jean's face, and when I asked for it back, you tagged me in a photo with it and then wore it to school the next day."

Gen eyes the crowd around them. "You gave it to me."

"You stole it out of my hands," he says, feeling more confident now. "That's not how giving works. Do we have to review the difference between giving and taking?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. It's mine."

"Actually, no. It's not." Now Peter looks at the crowd. "Hey everyone," he calls out. "Gen stole Lara Jean's scrunchie because she's petty like that and now she won't give it back."

Gen's eyes go wide and she's furious when she yells back, "I didn't steal anything! You can't even prove it was hers!"

Peter feels his heartrate pick up as he realizes what she's said. It's freeing to know that he's ready for her. Slowly, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He makes a show of unfolding it and then he holds it up so the image printed on it is facing the crowd.

"Here's a post from Lara Jean's instagram from a year ago when her sister gave her the scrunchie for her birthday. She bought it at an art show. It's one of a kind. Note that it just happens to be the same scrunchie that is in Gen's hair at this exact moment." He turns and holds the photo in Gen's face as he asks, "What were you saying again about it not belonging to Lara Jean?"

Gen fumes, her nostrils flaring with the force of her breath. "Fine!" she yells, ripping the scrunchie from her hair and whipping it to the floor. "Happy now?" 

She slams her locker door shut and storms off, having to push through the assembled crowd to escape, and he doesn't bother watching her go. Instead, he bends down to pick up the scrunchie and it's a victory in more ways than one when he closes his fingers tight around it.

*

The whole school knows about what happened by lunch so he's not surprised when Lara Jean finds him at his locker and asks, "Did you really yell at Gen in the hall before class just to get my scrunchie back?" 

"Yeah," he says. He takes the scrunchie out of the front pocket of his backpack and holds it out to her. "I know it's important to you and I hated that she still had it."

Her eyes travel back and forth between the scrunchie and his face as she lifts the scrunchie from his palm. Carefully, she slips it around her wrist. She closes her other hand around where it rests and keeps it there for a moment before letting go.

The scrunchie is officially hers again, and he feels something settle in him with the knowledge that it's finally been returned where it belongs.

"Thanks for getting it back," she says. She's looking up at him, a smile stretching her face, and he would face Gen a hundred times over if it meant making Lara Jean this content. 

Which gets him thinking about how he should be the one thanking her. Before he really got to know her, the idea of confronting Gen was unthinkable, but Lara Jean's courage to stand up to her gave him the strength to do the same. Not to mention that after the incident in the hallway today, he's pretty sure Gen's finally going to leave him alone. Even if she doesn't, he doesn't fear her like he used to. He doesn't need to.

"I love you, Lara Jean Covey," he says and even though that's not what he wanted to say at all, it feels right. In reply, Lara Jean gets up on her tip-toes, and that sense of rightness only grows when he feels her grin against his lips.


End file.
